Uganda grapples with malaria burden amidst promising innovations

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Uganda grapples with malaria burden amidst promising innovations

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Innocent Lawrence Okima,  The Independent,  2025.

According to the report, Uganda, with a population of close to fifty million people, accounts for 5% of the world’s malaria cases and 3% of malaria-related deaths. Astonishingly, according to page 151 of the report, Uganda leads the East and Southern African countries with 23% of malaria cases and high transmission rates, beating even Mozambique, which comes in second at 19%. It’s not exactly the kind of competition anyone wants to win. Malaria’s economic toll is just as staggering. Families lose loved ones, and resources that could have contributed to building roads, schools, create jobs are diverted to fight malaria. Children – the main victims of malaria – lose access to education and young children often die (80% of malaria deaths are children under five). Pregnant women are at high risk of losing their babies and their lives because malaria in pregnancy puts them in grave danger.

Uganda’s government, together with partners like WHO, has declared a fight against malaria. This includes distributing insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs), spraying homes with indoor residual insecticides (IRS), and ensuring early diagnosis through rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). Treatment relies heavily on artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), which remain a mainstay in the battle against the disease. While these measures have shown results—malaria prevalence has declined slightly over the last decade—progress is hampered by challenges like insecticide resistance, inadequate healthcare in remote areas, and insufficient funding. Not to mention the eternal struggle of getting children to sleep under the mosquito net and fishermen not to use it as one of their equipment to trap silverfish locally known as “Mukene”. Amid these challenges, hope emerges in the form of a genetic technology called “gene drive”, currently under development, and championed by Target Malaria at the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe. This cutting-edge approach involves genetic modifications to the Anopheles gambiae mosquito, the main malaria carrier in Uganda.